Hmmm... Yep, I think I'm going to take the risk of offending some sensibilities with this post.
The question is whether or not the BH should have warships at all (dessies on up). Many newer players seem to gravitate to the BH. I say "many" because I notice a fair amount going into other factions and procuring their cap ships there.
Since there is no player faction to enforce warship usage (and I don't think it's even possible anymore in light of some current decisions) , many trade until they get enough for a BC or a BS. Dessies don't seem to be too popular. Then the complaints begin. Many are justified complaints centering around lack of rp and fairplay. And some seem to be complaints made for the sake of complaining about something.
However, I am still holding out hope that the next mod's guidelines will help to restrict cap misuse - from all sides. But I'm not so naive as to believe that the entire problem will fade away. Or that everyone will be satisfied.
When I got here a little over a year ago, I wanted to go BH. That was before I even knew about BH warships. I was BH on a previous server, and I thought that would be a fun route to go here.
I was honestly surprised that the BH had a capship line. On the same token, I was suprised that some of the unlawfuls had a capship line. Really.
If you want to approach the question of capships being rp or oorp for a given faction from a semi-realistic (as realistic as you can be in a game) perspective, in all honesty I find it difficult to believe that the BH can construct and maintain a capship fleet. Now gunships / gunboats I see as being possible, but constructing and fielding anything larger would demand an enormous amount of resources. I say this as the owner of a BS and dessie.
Now, if the larger unlawful faction are completely candid with themselves they might come to a similar conclusion about their own fleet compositions. I can say, with a minimum of bias (no one is capable of being completely unbiased), that I have no idea why Corsairs, Outcasts, Lane Hackers, Red Hessians, Blood Dragons, Liberty Rogues, Mollys (hope I didn't leave any of the heavy hitters out) can have the resources to construct anything larger than a gunboat.
Ok, I'm pretty sure that some unlawful faction player with respond with a lengthy post of how his/her faction should have access to everything from gunboats to planet-busting space stations. Everyone has their own rationale of how the status quo is possible. It's a painful proposition to sacrifice perceived benefits.
However, the ultimate decision on capship availability lies with Igiss. This is his baby, after all.
But, if a serious decision were made to to nix warships from the BH, I would hope the decision would extend to the unlawfuls as well. The Zoners and the Order would probably have to lose their warships too, if we were to follow a similar line of logic (any Nomad threat could be countered with gunboats, bombers and fighters, so no real need for anything larger). That way, only House militaries would have warships in their fleets - which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
